‘Some things aren’t exactly, how should I put it, normal around here. Sure, my college is a college in a lot of ways. We’re living in our dorms, though we’re all lucky enough to not have a roommate to deal with. We still share a bathroom, though. Classes start far too early. Meals at the dining hall are less than stellar, and yet most of us still end up eating there purely out of convenience. My hall always smells of weed, though I’m pretty sure it’s all from the RA’s room, because us first years are too paranoid to smoke up in our dorms. We go to this nice wooded running path out by the local residential area. It leads from a bunch of houses to a strip mall, but no one uses it at night. Added bonus, there’s a Waffle House across the street from the strip mall. Basically, the perfect place to hypothetically get high.
But not everything here’s exactly normal for college experiences. For instance, I don’t know much, but I’m pretty sure my friends who got into Yale didn’t have to preform a blood ritual to start their first year. No biggie, just had to cut open my hand and drip blood into a bowl, chanting some funny song about privacy and dedication to the cause. I got the distinct feeling that if we didn’t do that, we’d be kicked out and mysteriously forget about this school’s existence. Or, at least, the details of it. Speaking of the details and weirdnesses, that morning class I’m always complaining about? It’s a class on the History of the Mystic. It’s also the only class I’m taking this semester that is actually taught by one of the professors, called ‘Maestros’ here, because, you know, mysterious magic-ness. All my other classes, the Mystical Theories 101, the Rituals of Vodun, Stats, French, are taught by what are essentially grad students. We all got assigned one of these ‘Magisters’ after that whole blood ritual thing as our advisor, and we’re required to take one class from them. Each one teaches two classes, and we can pick and chose what our coursework looks like, though our advisor has a heavy hand in what we do in the coming semesters. I get the distinct feeling that first year is our year to figure out what kind of magic-stuff we want to study, then the coming years our advisor gives us the coursework necessary to pass the graduation exams.
Me, my bathroom-mate, and this young kid, Therese, all have the same Magister advising us. She introduced herself as Amanda White, and she seems fairly hands off, for now. She’s really focused on her dissertation about something math something quantum something mystics, I didn’t pay that much attention when she told us, and she didn’t expect me to. If she finishes it, I’ll certainly give it a skim, but until then, I’m good. She’s the one teaching Stats, hence why I’m taking a math class. The other option was a theoretical physics class, and there was no way someone would convince me to do that. Only an insane person would. Speaking of, my bathroom-mate is. Anyways, I’m starting to ramble. It’s five weeks in, and I can honestly say, I think I’m getting the hang of this college thing.
Enjoy life, man,
-Jase’
As I finish my email and check through it, I can’t help but smile a little. I’d sent these before, I know that the moment I hit send, it would change into something else, innocuous and boring. It kept the feeling of the letters, just changed the specifics involving magic stuff. I knew that because I’d sent one basically yelling about how my garbage bathroom-mate keeps leaving his beard hair in the sink and making magical noise in his room in the middle of the night, and the reply was basically, ‘Wow, your roommate sucks.’ I don’t know whether it actually changes what I have written, changes how people perceive it, or changes how I perceive what I am writing, but, however it does it, I know my brother isn’t actually going to learn that I’m going to what is basically Tiny, Rich, American Hogwarts. A loud noise from next door jars me back to reality. “Yo, Ike,” I shout through the bathroom, “Keep it down a tad!”
Ike opens his side of the bathroom door and looks at me innocently. “Wasn’t me this time,” he says with a shrug.
I walk over through his door. Sitting on the floor, a smoking box between them, is Ali and Nat. Looking down at them, I ask, “So, which of you do I need to murder?”
Nat points at Ali as soon as the question finishes. Ali jokingly shoves Nat. “Some friend you are,” the skilled one says.
“It’s not like he can actually kill you, oh enigmatic they,” Nat replies with a grin, “Your dad’s too important.”
I shake my head at Nat. “That’s really not helping your case,” I say, “Now, had you said something like, ‘Alina, he couldn’t kill you, you’re far too wonderful and talented,’ that might’ve worked.”
“I don’t know,” Ali replies, smiling, “That sounds a tad too much like flattery.”
I raise my eyebrows at the attractive woman. “Oh,” I retort, “What would you propose?”
She purses her lips and furrows her brow, thinking a moment. Then she nods, saying, “Something simple, like, ‘Sorry, enigmatic they, but you’d fare better against him than me.’”
I nod, a smile crossing onto my face. “I see. The implied complement is what you prefer.”
“From them,” she replies, smiling herself as well.
Ike groans, almost as loudly as the explosion moments earlier. I nod to Ali, “It seems Ike disapproves of my presence. In the future, it would be much appreciated if you refrained from explosion, Alina.” I walk back through the bathroom, grabbing my coat.
“Where are you headed?” Ike asks, seeing me throwing my coat over my shoulders like a JRPG character.
“Out for a smoke. Or several,” I answer honestly, “I need to study for Em Tee, you know?” He knows what I mean after I mention Mystical Theory. I barely understand the stuff, but it seems easier for me to comprehend after getting high. I tack on, “If you guys want to join and help, you can meet me at Wah Ho, in like, thirty or so?”
Ike shakes his head. “Not likely,” he says to me, but I can tell that Nat and Ali are whispering about things behind him. With a nod, I grab my mints box that hasn’t held mints in ages and head out of my dorm. Down the stairs, out the door, onto the street. I give a nod to Greg as I walk briskly past him. He’s the top of our class, but he’s also an idiot. Still, pays to be cordial. He nods right back, and equally hurries past. I’m near the bottom of the class, but people like me. Mostly because I’ve got connections and was friendly, but still. Walking out through town, I make my way to the strip mall by the waffle house.
Walking down into the woods, I sit on my smoking bench. It’s just a normal bench in the park, but it faces the small pond. I think, during the day, old people use it to feed the birds, because whenever I sit down there, birds flock to me. Opening my tin, I pull out a joint. Quietly, I murmur the incantation to the only spell I’ve mastered in the last few weeks. I learned it from another regular in the Smoking Trail, a Magister named Lisette. A small flame jumps in a high arc from my thumb to my forefinger and back. Back and forth, so long as I keep them close together. I light up my joint and take a long drag.
Halfway through my first joint, Lisette stops by. We exchange hellos, and she sits beside me, lighting her bowl in the same method she taught me to light my joints. She has this thing about joints. Either joints killed her parents, or she doesn’t like the feel of papers, either way, she’s never taken up my attempts to pass politely. She looks very stressed. After she finishes lighting her bowl, I turn to her and ask, “Everything alright?”
“Nope,” she replies, shaking her head, “But it’ll be fine.”
Jokingly, I ask, “Who do I have to kill?”
She chuckles. If a Magister is having problems, an Apprentice isn’t going to be able to help out much physically. “No, it’s just, one of my Apprentices isn’t living up to their potential.” Turning to me, she adds, “It’s irritating, you know?”
“I get you,” I reply. I know what that’s like, though generally for me it was cornermen who turn too small a profit, or people messing up their jobs. Thank heavens I delegated all that stuff to people I trust before coming to college. They’ll keep things running while I’m learning, for sure. “Anything I can do?” I add, to be polite.
Lisette shakes her head. “Not unless you can beat some sense into Batu.”
I chuckle as I finish off my joint. “Sorry,” I reply, “Don’t know the guy.”
“Figured as much,” she says with a smile, “He runs in the prim and popular crowd. You don’t look like you know them.”
“I know you mean that as a complement,” I reply with another chuckle, even though we both know that she didn’t. I flick my roach into the pond and pull out my second joint. Again, I light it between my fingers.
She chuckles. “See you’ve been putting my lessons to work.”
With a grin, I say, “Saves me a buttload on matches.”
She sighs. “So, what’s got you our here?”
The grin drops and I shrug. “Mystical Theory test.”
She nods. She gets that. Thus far, I’ve been taking to the practical stuff kind of quickly. I’m probably the best student in my Vodun class. But the theoretical stuff? That goes right over my head and all of the Magisters know it. “I take it you’ll be studying later?” she posits.
I nod. “I’ll be holed up at Wah Ho until the wee hours of the morning, probably.”
“Anything exciting happening, or just a lonely study session?” she asks. Rather than reply, I turn away slightly and take a very deep drag. That tells her just about as much as any answer I could give. “Well then,” she jokes, “I’ll try to avoid peeking my head in. No promises, though.”
“Oh,” I say, “That reminds me, that party I’m not supposed to know that your holding for Amanda tomorrow?”
“First, how do you know that? And second, what about it?”
I smile knowingly, and say, “Well, if you’re looking for a spicy venue, I might know a thing or two.”
“What’ll I owe you?” she asks. She gets me.
I shrug, feigning innocence. “I just want my advisor to have the best party possible. Ideally, late into the night, maybe even the early morning?”
“You want me to get your Stats class canceled,” she says, seeing right through my faux innocence.
“Yes please,” I say with a grin.
“Depending on the information, that might be arranged,” she replies.
“Well,” I shoot right back, pulling up a place on google maps. It’s a house, about four miles off campus, with a massive, beautifully groomed back yard, complete with a pool and a hot tub. And, it is practically in a clearing in the middle of the woods. “As of yesterday, this place has its mail and newspaper on hold for the next two weeks. I talked to my guy in power and my guy in water, they can make everything turn on for the evening, night, and morning in question without it showing up on the bills, the neighbors are too far away to even notice. How’s that for intel?”
She smiles at me. “I think we can arrange a bad enough hangover for your purposes,” she says with a smile.
I check the time and, realizing it is running close to that thirty-minute mark, I stand up. “Welp,” I tell Lisette as I leave, “Off to food I go.” She laughs, continuing to smoke as I walk away. Before I reach the strip mall, I put out my joint on the back of my tin and put the roach back into the box. I figure I’ll add it to one of my others next time.
Walking out and across the street, I enter Waffle House, order, and sit down in a booth. Pulling out my textbook, I see Ali leading a reluctant Ter into the diner. They order and sit across from me. I raise an eyebrow towards the woman. “Where’s the rest of the musketeers?” I ask.
She shakes her head dismissively. “Ike’s being a baby about it,” she jokes, “And Nat insisted I have a babysitter.”
Ter rolls her eyes. “If I didn’t owe Natalya for that information,” she grumbles.
“What’s up?” I ask the young girl.
She glares at me. “I don’t need to study for our theory test. I got that. I need to be studying for the Stats quiz in two days.”
I shrug, grin, and muse, “Maybe not as much as you think.” Both Ali and Ter look curiously at me, but I don’t say more. Instead, I lean towards Ali and say, “Thanks for this, Alina. We both know I need help and you really don’t.”
She leans in as well. “Clearly. But I’m betting it’ll give me leeway to keep blowing thing up without you murdering me.”
I cock my head to the side. “It might,” I say with a smile. The food comes, and we begin to eat. Halfway through my waffle, we open up our textbooks and start going over what is going to be on the quiz. Save the subject matter, a perfectly normal college experience.